Despicere mundum et terrena : A Spiritual and Liturgical Motif in the Missale Romanum (original) (raw)
Related papers
Desacralisation as the Sanctification of the Church.pdf
Rosmini Studies 5, 2018
In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that are presented by the great Catholic intellectual Antonio Rosmini in 1848 in a text entitled Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa which was very influential for Italian Catholicism in the 20th century. The author argues that the text is not simply a diagnosis of the unsatisfying state of Catholicism but also refers to the question of the sacred and the holy. Holiness is to be linked the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton YHWH designating something inaccessible to human power. Rosmini, conscious of the power mechanisms of society and their totalitar-ian grasp, imagined a lovingly devoted Church to have the task of renunciating earthly re-gimes of power, thereby remembering its evangelical origins. The author shows that each of the plagues designates a critique of Church’s claim to worldly power. In the second part, he examines a conception of holiness in which the holy designates man as oscillating between two subjects, his own and that of Jesus, the latter marking a radical opening of the subject and the abundance of the name of God. It is betrayed when the Church becomes a sacral and institutional space of exception. In the third part, the author introduces four new plagues of the Church: the exclusion of laymen from joint responsibility for the Church, the claim to moral superiority as a legitimisation of sacralised power, sexual abuse and clericalism as patriarchal power and the exclusion of women from the sphere of holiness. While these con-temporary plagues indicate an understanding of holiness inadequate to the Gospel, Pope Francis’s notion is rooted in the latter, thereby sharing Rosmini’s notion of holiness, a notion that according to the author, is decisive for the future of the Catholic Church.
Desacralisation as the sanctification of the church
Desacralisation as the sanctification of the church, 2018
In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that were presented by the great Catholic intellectual Antonio Rosmini in 1848 in a text entitled Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa. The text was very influential for Italian Catholicism in the 20th century. According to Rosmini, the five plagues are: the separation of the people from the clergy in the public cult, the insufficient education of the clergy, the discord amongst the bishops, the handover of the appointment of bishops to the power of laymen, and the serving of economic power and ecclesiastical goods. The author argues that the plagues formulated by Rosmini are not simply a diagnosis of the unsatisfying state of Catholicism but also refer to the question of the sacred and the holy. Holiness is to be linked to the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton YHWH, designating something inaccessible to human power. Rosmini, conscious of the power mechanisms of society and their totalitarian grasp, imagined a lovingly devoted Church to have the task of renouncing earthly regimes of power, thereby remembering its evangelical origins. The author shows that each of the plagues designates a critique of Church's claim to worldly power. In the second part, he examines a conception of holiness in which the holy designates the individual as oscillating between two subjects, its own and that of Jesus, the latter marking a radical opening of the subject and the abundance of the name of God. It is betrayed when the Church becomes an institutional space of sacralised power detached from the profane world. In the third part, the author introduces four new plagues of the Church: 1. the exclusion of laymen from responsibility for the Church, 2. the claim to moral superiority as a legitimisation of sacralised power, 3. sexual abuse and 4. clericalism as patriarchal power and the exclusion of women from responsibility in the Church. While these contemporary plagues indicate a self-centred and power-conscious understanding of sacrality inadequate to the biblical concept of holiness, Pope Francis's notion is rooted in the latter. The Pope thereby shares Rosmini's notion of holiness, a notion that is decisive for the future of the Catholic Church.
VATICAN II's DEI VERBUM: EVIDENCE FOR A NEW STYLE
The question of this thesis has two inter-related parts: First, does The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, or Dei Verbum, show evidence of John W. O’Malley’s change in style? Second, does this particular council document express the five essential components of the new style O’Malley describes? Like O’Malley’s analysis, this project presents an appealing appraisal of how one council document expresses church teaching. Dei Verbum depicts a significant change in style, and it expresses the five characteristics of the new style O’Malley suggests. This single council document communicates these two elements; thus, it provides convincing evidence in support of O’Malley’s analysis.
Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition (CUA Press) - ToC and Introduction
It has become a commonplace to say that the Latin Fathers did not really hold a doctrine of deification. Indeed, it is often asserted that Western theologians have neglected this teaching, that their occasional references to it are borrowed from the Greeks, and that the Latins have generally reduced the rich biblical and Greek Patristic understanding of salvation to a narrow view of redemption. The essays in this volume challenge this common interpretation by exploring, often for the first time, the role this doctrine plays in a range of Latin Patristic authors. The introductory essay on the Latin liturgy shows the wide-ranging use of deification themes in Latin worship, while the last one comparing the Greek and Latin Fathers provides the first serious study of the East and West's understanding of deification in light of substantial evidence. The essays in between explore the theology of deification in Perpetua and Felicity, Tertullian, Cyprian, Novatian, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Peter Chrysologus, Leo the Great, Boethius, Benedict and Gregory. Together, these essays demonstrate that deification is a native part of early Latin theology which was consistently and creatively employed. This volume on deification in the Latin Patristic tradition will be the beginning of a long-overdue conversation. It promises to stimulate further inquiry into the place deification holds in the grammar of Latin Patristic thought and its relation to the Greek tradition.
TRS 362R: Theology of the Church of Rome (Spring 2015)
2015
As an introduction to ecclesiology, this course seeks to provide a fundamental understanding the Church’s origin, nature, structure, and mission. An overview of the New Testament and historical sources for the theology of the Church will develop into two primary tracks: 1) an introduction to the major ecclesiological models, images, themes and issues; 2) a special consideration of the Church of Rome and its relationship to the universal Church, particularly the question of primacy and collegiality.
Church History, 1999
Jahrbuch fuW r Antike und Christentum,-. Edited by Ernst Dassmann and others. Pp. incl. illsj pull-out plan and plates. Mu$ nster Westfalen : Aschendorff, . DM . ; The present volume of the Jahrbuch fuW r Antike und Christentum provides an insight into the recovery of the study of late antiquity and historical theology after the war as a combined discipline, and its continued vigour on the continent under the leadership of Ernst Dassmann at Bonn. Two chapters are devoted to the origins of the publication of the first volume of the Reallexikon fuW r Antike und Christentum in , overcoming appalling difficulties, and the lively correspondence between its first editor, Theodor Klauser, and Jan Waszink that preceded this event. Today their successors have amply justified their vision. On the historical side, Georg Scho$ llgen seeks to correct what he sees as neglect by scholars of the church constitutions of the second, third and fourth centuries, such as the DidacheT and the Apostolic Constitutions. Cannot these throw light on actual conditions prevailing in their Churches or regions of origin at least, on some of the problems that exercised them ? Klaus Rosen's lecture at the annual meeting of the Franz Do$ lger Institute traces the religious development of the Emperor Julian from childhood wonder at the brilliance of the sun's rays to devoted worshipper of King Helios. His second contribution, however, on the Acta of the martyr Crispina, executed at Theveste on December , adds little to Paul Monceaux's views in Histoire litteT raire de l'Afrique chreT tienne, iii. - (Paris ). The second part of the Acta are almost certainly a Donatist compilation, not surprisingly in view of the importance of Theveste and its great pilgrimage church in the life of that movement. Elsewhere, Ulrich Eigler examines evidence for stylistic borrowing in Sidonius Apollinaris's account of his journey to Rome from the poet Horace's report of a similar journey to the capital more than four centuries before. Karin Alt devotes a lengthy study to Hippolytus of Rome's first and sixth books of the Refutatio in which he blames, without due understanding, Plato and Pythagoras as the inspiration of all existing heresies. Archaeology is represented by Sebastian Ristow's detailed examination of the evidence for an early episcopal complex below Cologne cathedral. He concludes, however, that nothing of that nature can be established with certainty before the mid sixth century, though a baptismal church and associated Christian structures may have existed nearby. Detailed scholarly reviews, not least Winrich Lo$ hr's assessment of Gerd Lu$ demann's Ketzer : die andere Seite des fruW hen Christentums conclude a volume which, as usual, maintains the highest standards of production and illustration.